The Brave Mavericks of Autism

Autism Diva highly recommends Prometheus' most recent blog entry, Myths and Legends of Autism, Part 2, though all of his blogging is really good. It looks like Prometheus has moved his blog, so folks might want to update their links or bookmarks.

After you read about the "Brave Maverick Doctors" you might start to look at the Mavericks of Autism a bit differently. The guy who is claiming such huge successes with giving autistic kids methyl-B12 injections looks a bit different when you realize that he was trained as a pathologist, decided he didn't like it, then worked as a medical insurance examiner for 8 years before discovering the wonders of B12 injections, chelation with dicalcium EDTA and HBOT balloons with added oxygen for autism. You might look differently at another of the brave Mavericks of Autism when you find out that that HBOT peddler was kicked out of a university in Pennsylvania, where he was studying to be a doctor, for several problems, including replying on an exam that one thing that "often" happens when a child is diagnosed with a terminal disease is that he gets taken to Disneyland before he "deep sixes it." Later this guy was given a board certification in pediatrics, but only after switching medical schools a few times and ending up graduating from one in the Caribbean. This guy is also an animal rights activist toward the extreme end of that spectrum.

After reading Prometheus on the Brave Maverick Doctors one might look differently at a doctor Hoefflin who is promoting some kind of new wonder therapy for autism. He calls it I6S and the kids suffer from BELT (one of the weirder acronyms Autism Diva has seen). It's strange that he calls autism a left brain problem, when in the past legitimate researchers have compared autism to "right hemisphere syndrome," a term used to describe the changes to people who are thought to have damage to their right hemisphere (the term is sort of controversial among those who study brain damage).

Autism is caused by loss of left brain function. Four new techniques are used to stop and reverse the loss by using: (1) “Right Brain Sensory Patching,” (2) “Left Brain Sensory-Motor Hyperstimulation,” (3) A very effective special community based learning environment called “PEDS-NET” (Parent Education Directed Schooling in a Neighborhood Educational Training Program) where 3-4 “Lion Pride Mothers” and their child cubs train together in a special secure home environment and (4) A unique “Focused Stepladder Training Program.
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The major part of the program is based on the success at stopping and reversing another child’s neurological disorder. Up to 80% of Autistic children have one crossed eye (Strabismus). Over several months the eye will lose vision unless an “Eye Patching Program” is started. This can stop and actually reverse the visual loss. Likewise, as soon as a child is diagnosed with Autism, a “Brain Patching Program” is started and it too can stop loss of left brain function and actually reverse Autism.

Lion-Pride mothers??? The doctor who is promoting this unreasonable-looking new wonder therapy is what kind of doctor? A developmental pediatrician? A psychiatrist? Would you take your kid to get training in how to think like a neurotypical person from a bizarre acting plastic surgeon in Santa Monica? Hopefully parents are getting a little more savvy and sticking with treatments that have something a little more empirical than a strong personality, a friendly manner and some good schtick to back it up. As Prometheus pointed out, even if the doctor is very serious and sincere, he could still be totally wrong.

In a related vein, make sure you have read Kevin Leitch's recent blog entry about some problems with the claims of "recovery", like how some kids who "recover" don't seem to ever have been autistic at all, and how some parents claim that their autistic child is recovered and then later say that the kid is not at all recovered and about how some healthy skepticism about autism quackery seems to be finding it's way on to some of the autism/mercury/biomed parent boards. Kev's blog entry is called: The Myth of Recovery.


Autism Diva
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